Be Productive With Your Voice, using Dial2Do

On our Posterous site, we previously discussedReQall, a task manager and reminder system that allows you to record tasks with your voice, using some pretty impressive voice transcription. But why stop with tasks, calendaring, and reminders? What if you could use your voice to do much more, such as to send email and text messages, listen to and send messages on Twitter, and have web sites be read to you? Well, you can, using Dial2Do, a service that lets you call a phone number, and perform certain tasks with your voice. Read on for the myriad of ways in which you can use Dial2Do to stay on top of your life.

How it Works

Dial2Do isn’t the first service that allows you to be productive using your voice, but it may be the most feature-rich. When you set up your account, you associate one or more of your own phone numbers with your account. This allows Dial2Do to identify you when you call. To use Dial2Do to send email, you will also need to enter your email account information.

You will also want to enter some of your contacts into the service, so that you can use Dial2Do to email or text message those contacts. Then, when you’re ready to use Dial2Do, you dial the Dial2Do number. Once your call connects, a computerized voice asks you what you ‘d like to do.

What happens next depends on what you’d like to do. Many of the supported services are listed below, but let’s use email as an example. If I want to email my beautiful wife, I simply say "Email Elizabeth." After a prompt, I then speak my message. Within a few minutes, the message is transcribed using a combination of technology and human quality control, and sent to Elizabeth via email (and copied to me). The message originates from my own email address (which means you need to provide your email server settings). I have found the accuracy of Dial2Do to be nothing short of remarkable, even when it comes to proper names, product names, and similar words that should be difficult to get right. Just to be safe, though, the message contains a footer explaining that it was sent by voice.

Features

You can do more than just email and text message using Dial2Do. Here are some more tasks that you can perform with your voice using Dial2Do:

– Listen to your calendar and add appointments

– Add items directly to your Evernote account

– Record reminders

– Post messages to your Twitter page, and listen to your timeline.

– Listen to the weather

– Listen and post to Remember the Milk (or a few other supported task lists)

– Listen to feeds from a variety of websites, such as TechCrunch, Lifehacker, Mashable, and the New York Times.

The features that allow you to listen to information are not perfect, but they are passable. I’ve listened to my Twitter feed a few times, and I can make out about 80%-90% of the messages.

Pricing

Dial2Do was completely free until recently. I was fortunate enough to join Dial2Do shortly before they started charging for most functionality, and therefore am grandfathered into a free Pro account for the next year. A basic account, which allows you to create and listen to reminders, is still free. A Pro Account allows you to use the full realm of Dial2Do services, and is $3.99 per month or $39.99 for a year. A 30 day free trial is also offered.

Also, the Dial2Do number is not a toll free call if you’re tied to a landline where you pay per call. Dial2Do works in many countries, as evidence by the list on their website.

Summary

I’m a Dial2Do fan, and will continue to use the service when my free period expires if the pricing doesn’t change. My most common use for Dial2Do is in the car. I find that when I drive, I am always remembering tasks I need to perform. Dial2Do works remarkably well with my speaker phone, and helps me to stay productive and organized on the go, while keeping my hands on the wheel.

Do you use Dial2Do or a similar service? If so, let us know some use cases that work for you.

Hello, I'm Evan. I write about tech from my perspective – that of the average tech geek, sometimes with my lawyer glasses on. You can also find me on Twitter and at my real-life job as a lawyer. MORE ABOUT ME.

18 Comments

I love Dial2Do. I switched to it about a year ago when Jott.com went to a pay model. I think Dial2Do is much more comprehensive and easier to use than Jott was and when my free year is over I’ll be subscribing still.

I also use it same as you primarily when in the car or I need a quick reminder anywhere else.

Thanks for the observations about Jott. I’ve never used Jott, but wondered how it stacked up.

For just reminders, I’m probably equally split between Dial2Do and ReQall. If I just want a reminder waiting for me in my inbox, I sometimes use ReQall, but if I need to direct it to a specific inbox (work vs. home), or if I need to put it into Evernote, then I use Dial2Do.

I wish this service had been available to me a few years ago! I have a tendency to dictate thoughts and ideas when on the go and, at the time was driving a-lot-. I’ll check it out, Evan. As pricing models go, it seems reasonable, and being able to record more than a 2 minute message is so very useful (and why ReQall never quite hooked me).

Conway Burgess says:

Dial2Do just turns your phone into a adware and sends messages containing ads everywhere and there no way you can uninstall it as you have already given them your phone no. DON’T INSTALL IT ON YOUR PHONE. IT WILL MAKE IT TURN INTO A ADD PLAYING MACHINE.

In it, he explains “There is an auto-responder function within the application which will reply (once) to a contact who sends you a text while the app is reading out your texts (much like an “out of office” message in your email). However his shouldn’t cause spamming as it is completely user configurable and can be switched off at any time.”

Even if that is the case, if a couple of you have run into the same problem, then the options probably aren’t as clear as they should be.

Erik Huber says:

So… being the OCD kind of guy that I am, I just signed up for Jott as well… and guess what, there’s no 400 contact limitation. As well, the user interface (both online, and by phone) seems a lot slicker / friendlier.

Erik Huber says:

Voice transcriptions via Jott generally seem a little more accurate. As well, they seem to be delivered slightly faster compared to Dial2Do (my emails arrived in roughly 5 mins for Jott, vs. 10 mins or so for D2D).

The “user experience” for Jott is quite an improvement over Dial2Do. For one thing, I did not bump into Dial2Do’s 400 contact limit in Jott – admittedly, probably not an issue for many users. As well, the “look and feel” of the incoming emails was slicker using Jott (the Jott emails looked very “pro” with nice HTML formatting, vs. plain text for the Dial2Do emails).

In addition, the voice quality of the attached WAV file was a lot better with Jott than with Dial2Do… which might be important if you talk fast, like I do :-)

On the flip side of the coin, “Jott Pro” will set you back $12.95/month, whereas Dial2Do’s comparable “Pro” service is just $3.99/month.

In either case, the fact is that for a few bucks a month you can get an unlimited voice to email service which is pretty flippin’ sweet. I will bang on these a little more before making a final decision (too bad the Jott folks only give you a measly 7 day free trial, vs. 30 days for Dial2Do… oh well).

Would appreciate hearing from anyone else who has been a longer time user as well…

Awesome, thanks for the detailed feedback, Erik. I was grandfathered into the free year of Dial2Do, so I’ll at least see it through until then, but I will be curious to hear how your experience turns out. That $9 price difference could be a deal breaker, but if the transcription is markedly better, it could be worth it (although I don’t even use Dial2Do a ton, either – maybe once or twice a day, to send myself reminders and to get stuff into Toodledo).

Lisa S says:

Jott is actually only $39.99 / year if 15 seconds are enough, which they almost always are for me, though a few times I’ve needed to record 2 separate ones to finish a thought.

I’ve been with Jott for years but I’m considering ReQall – has anyone compared it to Jott? It’s a bit cheaper ($25/year) and has 30 second instead of 15 second recording for that price, Android app, evernote integration, etc.

Ive haven’t tried Jott, Lisa, since I’m grandfathered into Dial2Do until later this year. I have been using the free service of ReQall, which will send an email to one specified address. That works fine, but I haven’t tried out the other functions, since they aren’t available with the free version.

Great info Erik. I as well am grandfathered in to the D2D service. It also is a rare use for me. Mostly do it on long trips in the car to Tweet or something more than anything else, and the occasional reminder to show up in my email.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Learn More)

Search the site

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.